Anti-ageing mechanism challenged in study showing opposite effect

The 'miracle' protein which was believed to induce youth in older mice when blood from young mice was transfused could in fact have the opposite effect says a new studyWiki Commons

A protein believed to induce youth may in fact do more damage by inhibiting the ability of the cells to repair themselves, says new research.

The protein GDF11 was believed to be the reason for the parabiosis effect, where a young mouse and an old mouse sharing a circulatory system seemed to rejuvenate the old mouse, regenerating its wasting muscles and restoring its cognitive abilities.

Amy Wagers, a stem-cell researcher at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, offered the explanation for the blood-doping effect by showing that injecting GDF11, which decreased in the blood of mice as they grew older, helped them became 'younger'.

A team from Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts has now pointed out that the protein actually increases with age, and does more harm to the tissues than rejuvenation.

They showed that the reagents used by Wagers' group to measure GDF11 levels cannot distinguish between myostatin and GDF11.